Chocolate can help improve your maths

Eating chocolate could improve the brain’s ability to do maths, a new study suggests.

Mental arithmeticbecame easier after volunteers had been given large amounts of compounds found inchocolate, calledflavanols, in a hot cocoa drink.

Theflavanols, part of a group of chemicals called polyphenols, work by increasing theflow of bloodinto the brain.

For the study 30 volunteers were asked tocount backwardsin groups of three from a random number between 800 and 999 generated by a computer. They were able to do the calculations more quickly and more accurately after they had been given the drink.

The volunteers were alsoless likely to feel tiredormentally drained, the findings, presented at the British Psychological Society annual conference in Brighton show.

Prof David Kennedy, director of the brain, performance and nutrition research centre at Northumbria University, and a co-author of the study, said that chocolate could be beneficial formentally challengingtasks.

‘For things that are difficult to do, mentally demanding things that maybe crop up in your work it could help,’ Prof Kennedy said.

Although the amount was too great to be found naturally in the diet, researchers said that people should ensure that they have lots offlavanols, also found infruit and vegetables, on a regular basis.

Emma Wightman, one of the study’s lead researchers, said: ‘You can get bars ofchocolatethat have 100mg of flavanol, and we are also going to look at the effect of lower doses of flavanol on the brain.’Dark chocolatecontains higher quantaties of the chemical than plain or milk chocolate.

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